20240324_095806Golden Gate Bridge (March 2024)

San Francisco is both a city and county, located on a peninsula in northern California. While the city is small and compact, it’s also part of a larger conglomeration that’s known as the Bay Area, and it’s especially known for being close to the tech industry, aka Silicon Valley. Made popular through classic films and TV shows like Vertigo and Full House, it’s a hilly (and often chilly) place that offers another perspective of California.

Nicknamed “the City,” San Francisco has a long history of settlement, from the indigenous Ramaytush to Spanish conquest, as well as the California Gold Rush. It’s known for the devastating 1906 earthquake (8.0 Richter scale), which caused destruction to three-quarters of the city. San Francisco was rebuilt and throughout the mid-20th century was a major hub for liberal movements, including the Summer of Love and gay rights (with the election of Harvey Milk in 1977), and to this day remains a left-leaning, progressive place for all.

San Francisco might be small, but it’s quite larger than you think: it’s hilly and home to many neighborhoods that are fairly spread out. Driving can be a pain, with tons of one-way streets and traffic at just about any time of day. Compared to other major cities in the US, San Francisco has decent public transportation, with buses, intercity trains, even the historic cable car, to get around town.

I’ve visited San Francisco (or “SF,” for short) on a couple of occasions, including a brief visit in 2010 while road-tripping along the California coast and in spring 2024 for my birthday. Although SF is in California, its culture is a bit different from what I’m used to growing up in Los Angeles. There’s this sort of rivalry between northern and southern California in terms of the best culture, food, even slang that both places have to offer. There’s a joke that locals in SF/the Bay area use “hella” a lot (e.g. “it’s hella cold!,” “this tastes hella good!”), which is something I don’t hear much of in LA.

Rivalry aside, SF is a beautiful slice of California that’s worth a few day’s visit. If it’s your first time, three days (i.e. 72 hours) is a good amount of time to see the highlights, but it can always be extended by a day or two to venture out and discover more of the Bay area. That said, I’ve created an itinerary of what first-timers can do while in San Francisco, and I hope this will inspire you to visit this unique city in California. Here we go!

72 Hours in San Francisco: Things to See and Do

Day 1

Start with a quick, grab-and-go breakfast in Chinatown, with its plethora of Chinese bakeries serving silky egg custard tarts and sweet-savory BBQ pork buns. Wander along Stockton Street to take in the busy, often chaotic outdoor markets selling fresh produce at unbeatable prices. Pop into the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory (opens at 9h00), where you can take a tour of the facility and watch how the iconic fortune cookies are made (which are not Chinese by origin, but rather Americanized Chinese). In the end, you can sample some freshly-baked fortune cookies, even buying some to take home!

20240323_160742Strolling Chinatown

Have lunch in Chinatown: you can choose from dim sum, southern Chinese cuisine (e.g. Sichuan, Hunan), or Hong Kong-style cafés. Spend the early afternoon browsing City Lights Bookstore, founded by local poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953 and sells a variety of books, including those from the Beat Generation (e.g. Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs). You can also decide to visit the SF Cable Car Museum (free admission) to learn more about the city’s historic mode of transport.

20240323_162450Inside City Lights Bookstore

Take the bus to Coit Tower, located on Telegraph Hill in a quiet and residential community once home to bohemians and artists. Admire the expansive city views from the top of the tower ($10 USD admission) before taking the scenic Filbert Steps down to ground level. Head down to North Beach (aka “Little Italy”) to wander around and enjoy some delicious Italian food for dinner.

20240324_113518Views from Coit Tower

20240324_124050Fresh pasta in Little Italy

Day 2

Have a quick, grab-and-go breakfast at any of the incredible, French-inspired bakeries in the Pacific Heights neighborhood (as of 2024, current top-listers are Arsicault, b.patisserie, and Jane the Bakery) and catch the ferry from Pier 33 to Alcatraz Island for a visit of the infamous prison, which has housed notorious criminals like Al Capone. You can easily spend two to three hours visiting the prison and overall the island, where you get lovely views of the SF skyline and harbor.

20240324_105621Alcatraz Island in the distance

Return to the Pier 33 and have lunch at Boudin Bakery. This bakery specializes in the famous San Francisco sourdough bread, and it’s best to order the clam chowder served in a sourdough bread bowl for a hearty and comforting meal. After lunch, stroll along the pier over to Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39 to view the sea lions, then to Ghirardelli Chocolate Experience for a look inside this famous American chocolate company, founded in the city itself in 1850.

20240323_180941Ghirardelli Square

From Ghirardelli, there’s a cable car you can take not just to experience SF’s historic mode of transport, but also to take you uphill to Lombard Street, one of the steepest streets in SF and famous for its eight hairpin turns downhill. It’s exciting and harrowing to make the slow, crawling drive via car down the 27-degree incline, but in case you don’t want to do it, you can simply take the steps down the more-manageable side stairs and watch the action unfold!

20240323_173227Lombard Street

Take the bus over to the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center, where you can admire the iconic (not golden) bridge, perhaps even catch the sunset. From there, you can catch the bus or Uber/Lyft to the Richmond District to enjoy Burmese food for dinner– although SF has a small Burmese population, it’s also mighty and boasts some delicious, comforting dishes like mohinga (catfish noodle soup), laphet thoke (tea leaf salad), and nan gyi thoke (rice noodle salad).

20240324_094859Golden Gate Bridge

20240326_182510Burmese food

Day 3

Grab a quick breakfast at Pineapple King Bakery in the Sunset District; you can’t go wrong with a pineapple bun with guava butter and Hong Kong milk tea! The bakery is steps away from Golden Gate Park, where you can sit down to enjoy your food. You can spend the morning strolling inside its Botanical Garden or Japanese Tea Garden (both $14 USD for non-residents; however, you can enter for free on certain days in the early morning) and enjoy the tranquility in the middle of a bustling city.

20240325_090646Japanese Tea Garden

Bus over to the Painted Ladies for views of the colorful, Victorian homes, which are also abundant throughout the city (dating back to the Gold Rush). Then take the bus over to the Mission District to wander Valencia Street and admire the Chicano/Mexican-inspired street art. Order a Mission burrito to-go at any of the taquerias before heading to nearby Dolores Park to enjoy it while admiring the SF skyline.

20240325_113226The Painted Ladies

20240325_140311Skyline views from Dolores Park

Following lunch, head to the Castro District, a predominantly-LGBTQ neighborhood and home to the historic Castro Theatre. Nearby is Haight-Ashbury, which is the historic hippie district and today is a funky, alternative neighborhood with vintage clothing stores, smoke shops, and vinyl-record stores like Amoeba Records. You can also visit some of the stunning Victorian homes, some once home to famous musicians like The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin.

Head north to Japantown in the late afternoon. While a small neighborhood of only six blocks, it’s densely-packed with tons of stores, restaurants, and activities to keep you busy for hours. Much of the action is inside its three indoor malls, where you can browse cute stationary stores, enjoy a traditional tea ceremony, and otherwise get dinner at the restaurants serving quality ramen, sushi, and everything in between– plus, desserts like mochi and matcha ice cream afterwards!

20240325_151125Inside the mall in Japantown

Have you been to San Francisco before? Let me know! Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day! 🙂

— Rebecca

I’ve been inspired by the famous New York Times’ “36 Hours in…” segment to have started a similar series to offer some of my own suggestions of things to do, see, and eat in well-renown cities in the world that I’ve been to at least twice in order to ensure a more-comprehensive outlook on the cities themselves. Check out more of my “72-Hour” posts here!

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Published by Rebecca

Blogger, world traveler, poet, foodie, part-time penguin. Welcome!

49 thoughts on “72 Hours in San Francisco: Things to See and Do”

  3. Wow… that’s more than I’ve done in 30+ trips to SF!!

    The fortune cookie factory is the one that lets you bring your own messages to be inserted into a custom order of cookies.

    All the flat parts of SF are man made and mostly filled in boats/lumber from when it was cheaper to sail cargo to SF and abandon the ship, than to sail it back. Or so I was told during a really good 5hr walking tour of the city that I took ages ago.

    My personal fave item to do was to get a harbor cruise from one of the small private fishing boats between Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf.

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    1. Nice! Sounds like you’ve done your fair share of visiting SF during your two dozen-plus trips! I didn’t step inside the fortune cookie factory, but it looked and sounded like fun. SF is naturally hilly, I guess, and walking around town really activates those glutes! Sounds like you’ve had great times in SF, and I appreciate you sharing 😊

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      1. Yes, many great trips to SF. After my last visit, I developed pain in mt butt/thighs. My friend up there said, “Oh, it’s sciatica from walking the hills. Everyone here has it!”

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    1. Yes, it’s a challenge, but also a fun one! Of course, anyone is welcome to pick and choose what to do on this itinerary. My “72 Hours In…” series is a suggestion to first-time visitors on what they can see and do with limited time. 😊

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  5. I’ve always wanted to see San Francisco. From the photos I’ve seen, the city just looks so beautiful. I wasn’t expecting to see Burmese food in your list, but that’s a nice surprise! I loved mohinga, and I remember enjoying laphet thoke as well when I went to Myanmar in 2015. Thanks for this list, Rebecca.

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    1. Thanks, Bama! I’ve personally not been to Myanmar, so it’s nice to experience a bit of the country through its food closer to home. SF is a gorgeous city in California, and I highly recommend a visit should you come over to the US West Coast for a visit 🙂

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  8. We were there at the end of March although definitely not for long enough. Jon was actually just there last week for work. It is definitely a lot bigger of a city than people think and those hills are no joke! New time I would love to visit the botanical garden and Alcatraz.

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    1. Nice! My partner and I were in SF around the same time, too. SF is deceptively larger than it looks, as the blocks are quite spread out and the hills don’t help. I’ve actually never been to Alcatraz during my visits, so I hope you return to SF and report back! Thanks for reading, Lyssy 🙂

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  9. Well, I could have done with this comprehensive advice a couple of months ago when planning our one day in SF before our road trip 😁 Still, we did do some of your recommendations (Painted Ladies, Haight Ashbury, Pier 39) while others (Alcatraz, Little Italy, Chinatown) we covered on our previous visit.

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  11. In 1970, during the Indian occupation of Alcatraz, I went over to the island with some colleagues from the radio station in Berkeley where I was working. We installed a transmitter so they could broadcast live reports on our station, which they proceeded to do for several months.

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  15. You know, I’ve never been to SF. I’ve always wanted to go, though, and now I have the perfect itinerary! It feels like you picked out all the places I would have picked for myself while researching the trip. Thanks for the tour!

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  16. Great post Rebecca, I really enjoyed this and is seems to me SF has a lot to offer – especially in terms of food. That Burmese food looks delicious, as does the pasta in little Italy and then such a great range of Asian food too – sign me up for a trip 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Han! SF is a beautiful city in California, and it’s home to some of the best Asian food on the West Coast (even rivalling ours here in LA)! Hope you can make it over to SF to explore and discover it for yourself 🙂

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  17. Nice article Rebecca, San Francisco is a city I have long wanted to visit. Well, all my life really. Those views from Coit Tower really fuel the wanderlust. As does all the fabulous looking food, particularly the Burmese dishes. Negotiating a few of those steep streets looks like a must, I would almost certainly want to do Steiner Street too for the Mrs. Doubtfire house. The Painted Ladies are so elegant.

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    1. As you have visited so much of the world (even some places I’ve yet to go), I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time visiting SF! It’s a city steeped in history in its architecture, immigration, and cuisine. I hope you can come to California to visit some day 🙂

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    1. Perhaps it merits a return trip sooner than later! The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory is a popular tourist spot, and I definitely recommend a wander in Japantown (maybe even a nice meal)!

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    1. Thanks, Ruth! San Francisco is truly a vibrant city. I wasn’t around during the hippie movement, but I’m sure it was a fascinating time! I hope you can return some day to see it all again 🙂

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  22. I’d love to visit San Francisco one day, and this seems like a perfect itinerary to see the main things the city has to offer! I think day 3 would be my favourite, with the Japanese Tea Garden and beautiful Victorian houses! Thanks for sharing!

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